Biden’s lead in popular vote now more than 5 million

A large margin of victory in the popular vote does not necessarily guarantee a path to the White House

Joe Biden’s lead in the popular vote has now surpassed five million, according to the latest figures from the count, even as president Donald Trump continues to refuse to concede the election. 

As of Wednesday morning local time, the Democrat has received 77.27 million votes from across the US compared to 72.18 million for Mr Trump, according to the Cook Political Report, a non-partisan analyst. 

All major media outlets have now called the election in Mr Biden’s favour, with current projections giving him 290 electoral college votes compared to 214 for the Republican incumbent.

A large margin of victory in the popular vote in US elections does not necessarily guarantee a path to the White House – in 2016, Hillary Clinton lost the election to Mr Trump having received 2.8 million votes more than him.

State-by-state data reveal that while Mr Biden took a number of crucial swing states to take him over the 270 electoral college votes mark, in a broader category of battleground states, Mr Trump actually proved more popular.

These 15 battlegrounds include Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, Ohio and North Carolina. Among the 15, Donald Trump actually leads by around 1.13 million votes.

Of the 5.08 million lead enjoyed by Mr Biden, 4.9 million come from California alone – a state that gives 55 electoral colleges votes to the winner there.

It has been now been four days since the election was declared in Mr Biden’s favour, but Mr Trump has still refused to admit defeat and is instead challenging the results with lawsuits in several states.  

Earlier this week, the US attorney general William Barr, who was previously accused by two ethics groups of using his office to further Mr Trump’s political objectives, authorised federal probes into the claims of voter fraud.  

Within hours of Mr Barr’s decision, the country’s top federal investigator of election crimes, Richard Pilger, resigned from his post of at the Department of Justice (DOJ) which he had held since 2010.